French armoured Baby Holt experiment at Sauain 9 December 1915

Souain-Perthes-lès-Hurlus is a commune in the Marne department in north-eastern

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

First World War

On 9 December 1915 at Souain, a former battlefield with rough terrain and trenches, and in the presence of General

Philippe Pétain Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Joseph Pétain (; 24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), better known as Marshal Pétain (, ), was a French marshal who commanded the French Army in World War I and later became the head of the Collaboration with Nazi Ger ...

, a prototype armoured vehicle motorized with a

Baby Holt Benjamin Leroy Holt (January 1, 1849 – December 5, 1920) was an American businessman and inventor who patented and manufactured the first practical crawler-type tread tractor. The continuous-type track is used for heavy agricultural and engin ...

caterpillar was successfully tested. It is also known for the Souain corporals affair, 17 March 1915. The village is the site of the Monument de la Légion Etrangère, an

ossuary An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years th ...

with 130 bodies of légionnaires from the 1st and 2nd Régiment Etrangers, who fell at the French offensive in Champagne, in September 1915. The monument ossuaire was erected in 1920 by William Farnsworth, father of Harvard alumnus Henry Farnsworth, a young American university student who had enlisted in the French Foreign Legion on 5 January 1915 and was killed 28 September 1915. Harvard Alumni Bulletin - Volume 23 - Page 401 1920 Through the Farnsworth Room in the Widener Library Building his name is already linked, most fittingly, with the daily life of Harvard College. The new memorial in France has a significance and suggestion (if which all Americans may well take note. When Henry Farnsworth and other adventurous spirits among our younger countrymen threw themselves into the European war on the side of the Allies, .. The war had devastated the region, making construction very difficult. Nevertheless, the work was completed in less than six months, beginning in May and ending in November 1920, with work taking place seven days a week. Rue Henry Farnsworth in the town was also named for the fallen Farnsworth.

First World War

See also